Polka

By Patrick Goldstein, Special to the News/Sun-Sentinel 1986 Distributed by the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, June 20, 1986

Is punk polka sweeping the United States? Should a polka band have a bass player who wears electrodes and a hospital gown? Is that good or bad? That`s what a Polish-American national paper wonders in light of the increased popularity of such "polka `til you puke" spoof-groups as Los Angeles` Rotondi, San Francisco`s Polkacide, Texas` Brave Combo and Detroit`s Polish Muslims. Recent articles in the Polish-American Journal`s polka supplement raised questions about the propriety of such musical caricatures and whether they capture the authentic spirit of the polka and its place in the Polish cultural heritage.

Don't let the date confuse you: Oakland Park is celebrating Oktoberfest in September this year. The city's second annual celebration of all things German is set for noon to 10 p.m. Saturday. The daylong festivities will take place downtown, near Dixie Highway and Northeast 38th Street, and include traditional accordion players and oompah and polka dance melodies. About 500 people are expected to attend. Admission is free. "Oktoberfest is truly meant to be a celebration, and we want to encourage a lot of singing and dancing," event director Siegi Constantine said.

For the tens of thousands of visitors, Oktoberfest is a chance to drink beer, eat sausage and dance a polka or two. But for many who put on the event, Oktoberfest is a chance to keep their heritage alive and to ward off homesickness. "Most immigrants are homesick. That's why we keep it up," said Artur Radun, who moved from Germany to the United States 33 years ago. "You want to keep your past a little alive." This is the 20th Oktoberfest sponsored by the American German Club of the Palm Beaches.

On the pooldeck, the Suncoast girls' team was hard to miss in its bright neon green and black polka dot swim suits. In the pool, they were just as visible at the Palm Beach County Swimming Championships on Saturday night at the Lake Lytal Aquatic Complex. For the second year in a row, Suncoast, buoyed by depth and talent, won the girls' team title with 358 points. John I. Leonard was runner-up with 2801/2 and Boca Raton third with 272. "I am very proud of both the girls' and boys' swim teams," Suncoast coach Valerie Newcomer said.

FORT LAUDERDALE -- Now that he`s turned the New River Tunnel into an Art Deco rainbow, artist Jim Weinberg wants to take on Florida Power & Light`s smokestacks. "I want to do them in polka dots," Weinberg said of the smokestacks near Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. Spokesmen for FPL could not be reached for comment. Weinberg put the last stroke of paint on the tunnel Saturday, one day ahead of schedule, completing a project he had planned since October. About 500 gallons of paint donated by Sherwin Williams and 600 hours given by members of the Painting and Decorating Contractors Association of America went into painting the 117,000 square feet of concrete that line the tunnel`s north and south entrances.

Helen Pataky spent Sunday waltzing, fox-trotting and polka dancing to Polish music _ all in the name of celebrating her heritage. Pataky and a friend were among the participants this weekend at the fourth annual All-Florida Pulaski Day Celebration, centered at the American Polish Club, west of Lake Worth. The event was a tribute to Casimir Pulaski, an Polish-American soldier who fought alongside George Washington. "We enjoyed dancing, and the food was delicious," said Pataky, of Boca Raton.

Hardly a day passes without a new book being published on exercise and physical fitness. Authors of these books, male and female and debatable, turn up on the TV shows to flex themselves and demonstrate methods for staying young, fit and boring. But despite the national craze for daily strenuous exercise, many people still refuse to take part. You mention jogging, the most popular form of exercise, and they say: "I hate running." Or: "It hurts my knees." Or: "I`m too old, and I don`t want to die of a heart attack, alone and unloved on the jogging path."

The Polish American Club of Hollywood is offering free polka and line dancing lessons on Tuesday during Social Night. Dancing begins at 7:30 p.m. at the club, 3861 Stirling Road. Participants are invited to bring friends along for the fun. For more information, call 987-0662.

On the grounds of the American Polish Club in Lake Worth, 25 members are stuffing cabbage leaves and making pastries, enough to feed 500 people. It seems that after preparing mass quantities of Polish food, one would not want to eat another stuffed cabbage for months. Not so, says Helena Korol, who supervises the cooking. "We never tire of Polish food," she said. The food is being prepared for Pulaski Day, a day that honors Count Casimir Pulaski, a Polish soldier who became a national hero at the age of 24 when he commanded forces that defeated a Russian army in Czestochowa during the anti- Russian revolt of 1768.

South Florida's major presenters get the lion's share of attention, but one enriching aspect of the local music scene is the number of worthy smaller organizations serving our cultural community. Friends of Chamber Music of Miami has had an extraordinary season, bringing such stellar artists as the Emerson Quartet, pianist Stephen Hough, and Chamber Orchestra Kremlin, the latter presenting the Florida premiere of John Corigliano's Symphony No.2 with the composer in attendance. For its penultimate season event Thursday night at Gusman Concert Hall, Friends of Chamber Music served up yet another winner with the Jerusalem Quartet.

Raised Baptist, I never did get the hang of dancing. But I can stomp my feet along with the best of them, and I enjoy watching other people make happy fools of themselves. The polka dancers at Art's Concertina Bar in Milwaukee get so happy, though, that I'm tempted to join in. Then an older gentleman invites me to be his partner. Art's, which claims to be the country's only concertina bar, is part of old Milwaukee, that familiar Midwest city of breweries and bratwurst, bowling and polka.

Hollywood Whirling around the dance floor, Daniel Sawicki of Lake Worth and his daughter Victoria, 8, were the picture of father-daughter fun. Besides having fun dancing the polka, Dad was able to pass down his cultural heritage to his enthusiastic offspring during the 16th annual Food and Polka Festival at the Polish American Club of Hollywood. "We drove down because this is her heritage," Sawicki said. "When I was a child growing up, I belonged to a Ukrainian folk dance group." The event featured a yard sale in the morning, an afternoon jam session, a Polka Mass, and the evening's festivities included live music and the professional Ukrainian Dancers of Miami.

Virginia Musial's favorite part of volunteering at the Food & Polka Festival is watching people eat. "I like seeing them come in and enjoy the food," she said. "They walk in, get a whiff of those potato pancakes and they just have to sit down and eat." The home-cooked cuisine, made by members of the Polish American Club of Hollywood, is one of the festival's most popular features, said Musial, the organization's treasurer. The 16th annual event on Saturday inside the club's quarters, 3861 Stirling Road, is set to start at 8 a.m. with a flea market and bake sale.

Twenty-eight awards went out at the inaugural Grammys. More than a hundred are up for grabs tonight. What happened? Adding dozens of new awards over 46 years served two purposes: adaptation to the growth of popular music and atonement for past sins of omission. The first Grammy voters hated rock 'n' roll, and they lagged behind developments in blues, r&b, country, hip-hop, gospel and other influential sounds. It took them decades to learn to do the right thing. But that open-mindedness has turned into something else lately.

Polka dots have come full circle. Handbag designer Kate Spade adores them. Nicole Kidman wore them to the Venice Film Festival. Hartmann even put them on a luxe line of luggage. Get ready for the home invasion. They're finding their way onto everything from frying pans to wallpaper. You'll find polka dot bakeware, polka dot glass votives and bowls, even polka dot cocktail shakers and sheets. How hot are they? Target.com recently featured a 14-inch-high lamp with big, bold red polka dots on a white shade in its Red Hot Shop, the part of its Web site dedicated to cutting-edge style.

Angelo Greco couldn`t stop doing the polka even though he wasn`t on the dance floor. He shuffled his feet. He clapped his hands. He swayed his shoulders to blasmusik -- Bavarian horn music. "This is the best," said the beaming 69-year-old Hobe Sound resident. "I always look forward to Oktoberfest. I love it. It keeps me young. If anything will keep me young, it`s the Oktoberfest." The 13th annual celebration at the American German Club of the Palm Beaches on Lantana Road, as usual, was a smorgasboard of food, frivolity and firsts.

The announcement from the bandstand at the Food and Polka Festival told the whole story. "Someone has been dancing so hard, they lost the heel to their shoe," said one of the event's organizers as she held up the broken part. "Polka music is happy music for happy people," said Al Panasuk of Hollywood, the first vice president of the Polish American Club of Hollywood. "We have people come here from all over South Florida just to hear the music and dance." The club's 13th annual festival, which attracted several hundred Polish-American people and friends for an afternoon of dancing and ethnic foods, was last month at the club's grounds on Stirling Road in Hollywood.